


Value Me

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, pretty-canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2019-09-29 20:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17210030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Sarah isn’t necessarily happy that she works in a lace factory while her brothers go to school all day.  Pre-strike Jacobs Family fic.





	Value Me

Sarah had a grim face that evening, as she threaded her needle, and picked up one of Papa’s old shirts from the mending basket. 

There was always something to sew, and since she’d had to drop out of school three months ago, David had noticed that she’d always been at that kind of work. Sometimes she hummed as she did it, or described the other women at her factory for David, who had never been there, and didn’t know any women or girls very well, aside from Mama and Sarah of course. 

There were also nights where Sarah pushed her needle angrily through the cloth like she was pretending to stab someone, and nights like tonight, where Sarah was obviously blinking back tears. 

“What is it?” David asked. He was at his desk, scratching away left-handed at his homework, because Mama and Papa weren’t watching, and Sarah didn’t care. 

“Nothing,” Sarah answered, in a tone that did not leave much room to continue the conversation. 

Under normal circumstances David would have asked again. He didn’t want to make Sarah cry, though. He tapped on the desk distractedly, and bit his tongue. Sarah pushed her needle through the fabric. The shirt had only had a small tear, so she made quick work of it, and went back to the basket for a pair of David’s trousers that the button had gone missing from. 

“I can do that,” David offered. 

“You don’t know how.” Sarah’s voice was forcibly mild. 

“I will if you teach me. Less work for you that way.” 

“You’d be terrible at it,” Sarah shot back. “You don’t even write correctly.”

The jolt that went through David at the comment was surprising. He looked down at his hands for a second, switched the pencil from his left to his right, and continued at his homework, slower than before, but still neatly enough. 

“It’s a good thing that I am a competent seamstress,” Sarah said, after several minutes had passed. “Seeing as I’m never going to do anything other than sew and get married.”

David frowned, and turned around. “You could be a writer,” he suggested. “There are woman writers, and you’re good at it.” 

Sarah scoffed, “Says the boy who spent an hour ranting yesterday about how much he hated the Brontës.”

“I said Jane Eyre wasn’t romantic.” 

“Shows how much you know.” 

“I like Anne best out of them.” 

Sarah shrugged, and David got the strange sense that she was in one of those moods where she would defend Mr. Rochester to the ends of the earth if necessary. 

“Martha at work said she hadn’t read a book in years. She has children, you know. She plans to keep books away from her little girl as well. She says that a young girl in our position only need learn to write her name, and recognize about fifty or sixty words. Your pants are finished.”

Sarah stood up, handing David’s newly mended clothing over to him with force, as if she was convinced he needed it right away, and maybe deserved to be bludgeoned with it as well. David felt like letting go of the pants would be rude at best, and taken as an act of treason at worst, so he pretended to examine the button that Sarah had just attached. 

“Middlemarch was a good book,” David said. He was searching for the words that would make Sarah feel better, and he hoped that those would be it. 

Sarah didn’t answer him. She’d found something else in the work basket to take up her attention. David frowned and turned back to his homework, but even by the time half an hour had passed he still hadn’t gotten anything done, other than a rather unimpressive geometric pattern in the corner of his page, which he’d have to erase later. 

It was another few minutes before David became aware that Sarah wasn’t sewing any more, but watching him carefully. David put down the pencil and ran his hand through his hair. 

“Hey Sarah?” David said, turning around in his chair to face her.

“Hmm?” Her needle started moving again, and her eyes returned to her work. 

“You’re smart an important,” David said.

This earned sort of a half smile from her, and something quiet that was almost like a laugh. 

“Finish your homework, David,” she said, some of the warmth returning to her voice.


End file.
